Tired Of Looking

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NEW YORK: UNSCOM chief Richard Butler could be forgiven for feeling a little like Ken Starr: even though his investigation is not complete, it could still be buried in the shifting sands of politics. U.N. inspectors today finished searching Saddam Husseins disputed presidential sites, and came up empty-handed. They werent expecting to find anything; they were simply establishing their right to search those sites, says TIME U.N. correspondent William Dowell. Things are on track right now, although UNSCOM staff members privately expect further confrontation with Iraq some time down the road, because the Iraqis are still playing cat-and-mouse.

Lifting sanctions, however, wont be decided by UNSCOM. Youre never going to be 100 percent certain there are no weapons of mass destruction, says Dowell. Ending sanctions will be a political decision, dependent largely on the U.S. changing its Iraq policy. When that happens, Butler could always ask Starr for a job -- after all, getting into the White House would be childs play for a man who forced his way into Saddams palaces.